Under the guise of supporting women’s health internationally, President Joe Biden rescinded a regulation that bars U.S. foreign aid from being used to perform or promote abortions.

The executive order, signed last Thursday, includes a restoration of American funding to the U.N. Population Fund and withdraws the U.S. from an international accord committed to promoting anti-abortion policies.  This fulfills a campaign pledge Biden made to reverse steps his predecessor had taken to limit abortion.

Biden told his cabinet, “These excessive conditions on foreign and development assistance undermine the United States’ efforts to advance gender equality globally by restricting our ability to support women’s health and programs that prevent and respond to gender-based violence.”

For those devoted to preserving the sanctity of life, this is disheartening news. The United States spends billions of dollars on foreign aid each year. It seems strange that it would somehow be acceptable or applause-worthy for our tax dollars to help women have abortions in other countries. As I sit with friends grieving pregnancy loss or battling infertility, I hear their cries of how expensive it is to try to adopt or get medical help when trying to get pregnant. How sad and strange is it that we send money overseas to help women abort their babies while, here at home there are men and women who desperately want children but when faced with pregnancy difficulties, can’t afford to pursue it.

According to Fox News, a poll from Marist and the Knights of Columbus showed that 58% of Americans oppose or strongly oppose using taxpayer dollars to support abortion. That included a 65% of Independents and 31% of Democrats. A full 77% percent of Americans answered that they were opposed or strongly opposed to using tax dollars to fund abortion in other countries. This included 64% of those who identified themselves as, “pro-choice.”

We’ve travelled a long way from abortion being “safe, legal, and rare” as Bill Clinton once suggested, to abortion being qualified as part of women’s health. And I’m quite certain that no man, woman, or nation is better for it.

But regardless of who is in power politically, we will continue to move our gospel-centered, Pro Abundant Life vision forward by providing compassion, hope, and help to women and men considering abortion – empowering them to choose life for their unborn children and abundant life for their families.